


To Tell One's Name

by inthemarketplace



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College Student Rey (Star Wars), F/M, Fluff, TA Ben Solo, a wee bit of angst, seduce me with your strong opinions on Library of Congress Classification methods, technophobe Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-10 11:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13501152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthemarketplace/pseuds/inthemarketplace
Summary: Lightly inspired by Doug Dorst and J. J. Abrams’ experimental novel S, this story follows the burgeoning friendship (and maybe more?) of two lit nerds as they navigate complicated issues like uni, poetry, and whether it’s ok to write in the margins of books.





	1. A modest discovery

**Author's Note:**

> So I liked the idea of writing a story around the Dickinson poem “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” It’s long been one of my faves (not that I’m alone in that feeling; it’s of course one of her most famous poems) and I was reading some Meta on the “You’re nothing” line and this popped into my head. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier, and I’m sure someone has already talked about it at length but I just had the idea stuck in my head of building a story around the poem. Text of the poem is recreated below with punctuation, and is available at http://www.bartleby.com/113/1027.html. 
> 
> I’m Nobody! Who are you?  
> Are you – Nobody – too?  
> Then there’s a pair of us!  
> Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
> 
> How dreary – to be – Somebody!  
> How public – like a Frog –  
> To tell one’s name – the livelong June –  
> To an admiring Bog!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a rainy Friday evening, Rey makes a discovery at the university library.

The marble halls gave an odd sort of echo: part rapt staccato, and part muffled thump. She’d been wandering around the humanities buildings all this rainy weekend, trying to find something she’d missed. It was foolish of course. She’d be gone soon enough, and one more place to hide in the hallowed halls didn’t matter much. Still, there was something intoxicating about creeping along the hallways, the soft stone worn down the middle with age, and no one to tell her no, to exile her to the muted mod orange of the library study rooms. But she hadn’t found what she was looking for; no cloistered alcoves that she hadn’t seen before; self-banishment it was then. She pulled on a rain slicker and left the languages building.

She glanced cautiously up at the dark grey sky; the drizzle it produced wasn’t overwhelming. If she ran, she should be able to get to last a fair minute before any water damage. That decided it: it was time to go to the library. She’d returned her latest slew of books the day before yesterday, so she ought to be in the clear. As she strolled toward the promise of more research to wade through, she mentally rummaged in her pack— _yes, there it was_! Her canvas tote meant she’d be able to expand her sources page considerably.

Stepping inside the library, the musty smell of books compounded by the Friday evening rain. She took the elevator up to Language and Literature and made her way to the 300s. It was a calming stroll from Bryant to Frost before she found her way to the section on Stein. Oddly, she’d gotten more distracted than usually as she’d passed by Whitman and Dickinson—ever since that one article, she kept wanting to find ways to put the transcendentalists in conversation with the modernists that were so close to her heart. It was too much to take on though; _that_ was a dissertation, not a term paper. She needed to focus, or she’d never get the hell out of here, and _oh_ , how very much she wanted out! Two, five, ten, twelve… she filled up the tote too easily, greedily hoarding ideas to gorge on later.

She was about to go when an out of place volume caught her eye. It was perched atop a row of books on the Modernists. Odd, it seemed stuffed to bursting with papers. Typically the books that held spare pages only contained a few pieces of bygone science reports or the like. She sat aside the plentiful stack she’d carried, Stein and Eliot forgotten for now, moving to investigate the anomalous tome. She glanced at the title—it seemed to be in the right place, more or less, though it had been lazily placed horizontally across the tops of the other books on the shelf. She opened it at the middle and several papers fell out.

But it wasn’t hastily discarded physics homework or a shopping list. They were half-sheets, letter paper, with writing in an even hand. As she skimmed the words, she found to her surprise that they were notes, and notes on Dickinson, no less. Moreover, they were thoughts about Dickinson and the Modernist poets of the book from which the paper had fallen. It wasn’t the sort of thing one usually found laying around. _Curious_ , she thought, _perhaps it was a private copy and not the library’s_? But on examining the front she found the library’s seal and a check out tab, all very much in order. Perhaps she should have left it alone, but it was such an odd thing to find—legible and rational notes in a library book, and on her topic too!

She didn’t wait to look through more of the notes—better to take it to circulations with the others and flip through the pages at her leisure. She didn’t tarry nor did she search for any other books, as she had gotten what she’d come for and then some. She didn’t linger long amidst the dimly lit shelves of the PS300s, but if she had, she might have heard the heavy footfall of a lone figure clad all in black as he stormed sullenly along, eager to reclaim the book that in his haste he’d left behind.

* * *

_This is somebody else’s book._

 

The thought kept coming back to her again and again. It didn’t make any sense, though, why she made herself uneasy over the loan of the slim volume. She had checked it out at circulations with all the other ones.

“Got a paper coming up?” the student worker had asked.

“Something like that,” she’d said, not eager to elaborate. Something about the book felt secret. _The_ _book_ , she thought to herself derisively, as if there was only one that really mattered. Twelve books added to her growing pile for her senior capstone paper, and the extra burning a hole in her canvas tote that made it a baker’s dozen. Who knows? She might even find something useful within. It was topically within the scope of her project. But as she had looked over the volume it wasn’t the contents that had really caught her eye. It wasn’t the author’s words that she wanted to scan.

She got to her car and tossed the bag in the passenger seat. It was a short drive across the university town to get back to her apartment, made shorter by the late hour and the sleepy streets. She parked on the street; the meter readers wouldn’t be around ‘til morning anyway. As long as she left early enough she’d scrape off without a ticket.

She hauled the bag out of her car and made the trek to her fourth story walk-up. She flipped the switch, tossed her coat on the rack, and put the kettle on. Soon she was curled in her reading chair with the book in front of her, all pretense of focusing on the other more pertinent works vanished. She looked at the worn spine:

 

 _On Balance and Desire: Light, Dark, and Passion in American Modernist Poetry_ by E. G. McCrystal, published 1998, Hartford Press.

 

Some of the notes seemed to agree with the author. Many were almost jeering in their dismissal. But over and over again, they mentioned Dickinson’s body of work as a counterpoint to the arguments the chapters were making, and she couldn’t stop herself from wondering… but no. It was ridiculous. Still, she couldn’t help the nagging thought eating at her mind: had someone else read the article? Dr. L. Skywalker’s “Transcendentalists, Modernists, and the American Tradition”?—and if they had, and if they had left these notes…

_Seems McCrystal hasn’t ever heard of Dickinson. Fascinating._

She snorted.

Really, she ought to put it down; there were other books to skim. But the thought of abandoning the acerbic marginalia was about as appealing as heading back out into the rain. Someone had left _these_ notes in _this_ book in her university’s library, and that meant—but no, it was a massive university, and it wouldn’t do to dwell on a person that might be cities or countries away.

It sure didn’t seem like anyone was coming to claim the book, so she might as well sit back and enjoy. She took a sip of her tea and turned the page.

* * *

Meanwhile, across town, a terribly ruffled man greeted his roommate with a gruff and unconventional salutation:

“Hux, I lost the book.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put Dickinson in the 300s even though a lot of people put her in the 150s because she was a poet! And not just a woman! I know it's not that big a deal, I'm just dramatic.


	2. My mind was going numb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben's attempts at finding his lost book are unsuccessful, but Rey's new discovery might be the key to her research.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's rather bumpier than I'd like it to be, so I'm likely to go back and edit it a bit in future, but for now I just wanted to put it up.

“What do you mean you lost the book?”

Ben’s declaration had echoed, too loud, across the room, bouncing off the furniture and the shelves. Hux sat in one of the smart brown armchairs in the bay window; he’d been engrossed in a book of his own. The room was meant to be a parlor of sorts but they’d converted the front sitting room of the row house into a library, a decision that was as practical as it was appealing to the two doctoral students. But the muted elegance of the Queen Anne architecture was lost on Ben as he hung up his coat with a scowl.

“I mean I lost it! I don’t have it anymore! It’s gone,” Ben cried as he skulked about. Hux raised an eyebrow, then another as Ben paced back and forth.

“This might shock you, but I’m vaguely aware of what ‘lost’ means. Ben—Ben! Shut up for a second. Breathe or something. Yeah? Ok great. Now start from the beginning: what the _fuck_ are you carrying on about?”

Ben breathed in and looked up, sadly. “The modernist book, the one that I was annotating. The one that I was using to keep my notes on the Dickinson project, you know…” 

“You mean the project you started with—”

“Don’t say it!” Ben cut him off, angrily.

“Jesus! Fine! The Unspeakable Poetry Project, then,” said Armitage, “satisfied?” Ben only huffed in response but it was enough. He’d been working on the paper for years—entirely too much energy for something he’d never be able to publish. Hux had always given him a hard time about it, but his friend was clearly upset, so he lowered his voice a little to what was meant to be a mollifying tone: “You haven’t talked about it in weeks; I thought maybe you were taking a break?”

“No, I…” he trailed off, looking down. Armitage nodded in understanding. Who hadn’t been there? 

“Hit a rough patch?”

“I think I’ve completely exhausted all the resources on it, ILL won’t even talk to me anymore.”

“Ouch.”

“It wouldn’t matter so much, it’s only… Arm, _all_ of my notes were in the book,” said Ben.

“Oh Ben, you absolute tit,” Armitage drawled out. Ben’s mistrust of technology had long been a point of contention between them. He sighed, turning a page in his book, “you know what you need? A fucking computer. With a hard drive and everything. The works.”

“This isn’t a time for jokes!”

“Now, the fact that you think a hard drive is funny, that _is_ interesting,” he said, standing and suddenly serious, “let’s unpack that a little, shall we?” He moved to the chalkboard they’d mounted to the wall, a hazard of two teachers sharing a roof. Picking up a piece of chalk he took his time writing on the board: _Are computers real?_

Ben stormed out of the room.

* * *

_This was somebody else’s book._

Perhaps, hindsight being what it is, she would have left the book alone had she known what she was doing when she loaned it from the university’s library. Perhaps, Rey being who she was, she would have carried on much the same anyway. At any rate, she found herself that Friday evening huddled over the book, on her fourth cup of tea, and no sign of slowing down. It was just too good. Not the book, not the notes, but the two together. It was the sort of conversation she always felt herself carrying on in her head, the things she’d never have the guts to say to a professor in real life, or that she hadn’t found the way to put into words. 

The writing was immaculate—so gripping it increased her interest in book’s essays tenfold—but the note-taking system itself had to be the most unnecessarily ordered thing she’d ever seen. Rather than leaving notes in the margins, the writer had used sheets of blank letter paper, and numbered them to the corresponding page. They’d even gone down to the paragraph number! Though most of the annotations weren’t complete thoughts, they were all still full sentences. It left her with a burning question: _who the hell had the time?_

She turned the page and glanced at the accompanying sheet of notes before even looking at the book.  

> _This is madness. ‘The first of the great American writers to truly explore nature’? He cannot possibly be serious. Where did the Firesides go? The transcendentalists? Frost is great, but the first American to go outside he is not. Such absurdity only serves to undermine what could otherwise be a salvageable point._

She blinked at the harshness in the annotation. Who was its writer to be so adamant about the thoughts of an established and respected critic in the field? But when she found the corresponding passage in the book, she changed her mind. It really was entirely too much to believe. Maybe it was a typo? How had such a verifiably false statement even gotten published, she wondered, and yet it certainly did seem that he’d skirted over nearly 150 years of other American writing to try and make a point. Shaking her head, she followed along in the book to the end of the page, but rather then going on went back to the notes to see what the annotator had said. 

> _I agree with McCrystal’s main point; however, he really does himself a disservice by not accounting for a larger historical perspective._

 Well she could agree with that as well. Moreover it was pertinent advice for her own project, and wasn’t that what she’d been trying to say to her advisor all along? That she needed to put her research into a broader context, not just examine one moment in isolation. But no, he always wanted her to narrow her focus. Of course she saw the dangers of taking on too much, but why couldn’t he see the merits of saying something worthwhile? And that’s when it hit her, just how frustrated she’d been in her program. And here was a piece of paper, giving her more support than any of her ‘mentors’ had managed to do. What did it say about her that—but no, there was nothing to be gained from that line of thought. And besides, it was late. Best to leave her theories with the book and its notes, and turn in for the night. After all, she’d have all weekend to wonder.

 

* * *

**Saturday**

* * *

 

She sat, legs folded, atop the washer. The low din of the laundromat buzzed in the background. No one paid her any attention as she leafed through her backpack. Still, she looked around her; it was foolish, but something about the book felt private, almost indecent to read out in the open like this. She shook off the thought and brought out the book, balancing it carefully on her knee, and opening it gently with her bookmark. She held the notes tightly in place, worried to lose them to a gust of wind, and let the words pull her back in.

She couldn’t shake the oddity of the notes; who wrote so formally when all they were doing was jotting down their thoughts? And yes, it might be a loan from the library, but who spent this much time with a book and left nothing behind in the margins? She couldn’t count the times she’d lightly penciled down a mark or two—they were easy enough to erase when the time came to return. Yet the book before her was completely stark; not one note on the page despite the multitude of papers shoved into the volume. And the annotator—if that’s what he could be called given his lack of direct interaction with the book itself—had certainly enough temper that it must have taken a great deal of restraint to keep from scrawling angry epithets on the page let alone underlining anything. Even as the image of an angry bookworm, face red, drawn up over the book came into her head, she found such another one of these irked passages in the notes: 

> _How_ dare _McCrystal imply that Stein was secondary to expat modernists? When was this written? The neolitic?_

He’s really winding himself up over this one, she thought to herself, but the thought made her start. When had she started calling the writer of the annotations a ‘him’? Odd, she didn’t remember consciously making the switch. But it wasn’t much of a stretch—she was willing to bet it was a ‘he’ that’d written the notes. The tone was too… something to have been a woman. Women gushed about Dickinson differently. But maybe, more alarming than her personification of the notes’ author was how much she thought of the book as his—his book, not hers, not the library’s. Not just a book he’d had, but his. He’d claimed it with the hours he must have spent pouring over it and piling himself into it. One thing was for sure:

_This was somebody else’s book._

* * *

Maybe his old advisor had been right; maybe the whole thing was a fool’s errand. At any rate, he’d certainly been working on it for too long. It wasn’t that he didn’t love the material—he did—but the slog of putting his thoughts together was getting unbearable. He’d hit a wall, and no matter how hard he struck it, he couldn’t get past. He’d gone over everything time and again, and he still wasn’t making any progress. Maybe loosing the book was a blessing in disguise. Maybe it really was time to leave his old work behind and move on.

“Can you stop moping and give me a hand?” Hux’ voice broke him out of his dark reverie. He grunted out a monosyllable in response and moved from the doorway of the kitchen to the front of the house to help Hux with the crate overflowing with student exams.

“Where do you want these?”

“Kitchen table. And there’s two more in the car. God, I hate midterms,” Hux said.

“Sure, but it helps how much the students love them, right?”

“Fuck off.”

Ben carried the crate to the round dining table in the kitchen, Hux close behind with another stack of exams. By the time Hux had brought in all of his students’ midterms, Ben had brought some of his own papers in need of grading to the table.

“When are yours?” Hux asked as they sat at the table, setting in to a long night of grading. 

“Next week, but the department doesn’t really regulate ours, so it’s not as much grunt work,” said Ben, marking a down a grade and turning to a new paper. 

“Hm, sounds nice.” 

“Yes but we still have to do the regulation essays. And after the first few hundred versions of ‘The Story of My Name’ most of us are ready for death.”

“Sounds less nice.”

They carried on for a while in silence. Two cups of coffee later, Hux decided to broach a topic even less desirable than midterms.

“Any sign of the book?” Hux asked though he already knew the answer. It wouldn’t do for Ben to bottle it all up, he was liable to explode.

“No. And I can’t exactly ask the library or post a classified or something,” said Ben.

“A classified? God, Ben, are you a hundred years old?” Hux said incredulously, but backpedalled from his mocking when he saw the look of gravity on Ben’s face, “Sorry. And sorry about the book. Maybe an overzealous student worker just decided to reshelf it; it could end up back on the shelf any day.”

“I doubt it. I’ve already checked twice today.”

“Yeah but they’re slower on the weekends, it takes time.”

“Maybe. I just can’t believe I could be so stupid,” Ben said, head in his hand.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I went looking for a book on Stein, paused for one second to go to the bathroom, and when I came back the book had vanished.”

“Did you see anyone on the floor?”

“It’s midterms, there’s plenty of people all over the library, but no one that looked like they might make off with an outdated book on American Modernist Poetry,” Ben said with an edge to his voice.

“Hm, and what does that sort of individual look like?”

“Not carrying a physics textbook, not asleep on the sofa…”

“Ok fair point—it’s not the most prestigious library, and it’s not exactly brimming with scholars—”

“They creak across my soul with boots of lead.”

“Oh, is that Shakespeare?”

“Shut up, Hux.”

Hux didn’t say anything more, only smiled, sipping his coffee and marking notes on the exam before him.

* * *

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The first time was an accident, completely unintentional. The second time… well the second time was less innocent. But after that, she hadn’t meant to go back to it at all. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. The notes were just too damn good. The third time she started to add her own.

> _Here’s where McCrystal’s ahistorical perspective really does him a disservice. If only he could look beyond himself he’d see how badly he’s failing himself by not taking Dickinson into account._
> 
> He wants to talk about balance and moving forward but he can’t do that without first acknowledging the past.

She stared at the contrast between the elegant cursive of the notes on the letter sheet and her practical print. Her phone buzzed and she started, the noise bringing her out of her silent study.  

> We still on for tomorrow, peanut? 

She texted back to confirm with Finn before setting aside her phone; picking up her pencil again, she returned to making her own mark on the book. It was time to go back and leave her thoughts on the parts she’d already read, and maybe even deposit a sticky note or two.

 

* * *

**Sunday**

* * *

 

“Oooh is it the cute guy who ‘needed help with computers’?”

“Shut up,” he said a little sheepishly, but Rey wasn’t about to relent. She’d been teasing Finn a good part of the evening about the MFA whose terrible pick-up line hadn’t kept him from getting Finn’s number last week at the bar.

“Oh my god it is!”

“Shut up!” he laughed, pushing playfully at her shoulder. The din of the coffee shop was a calm background against their conversation. 

“Well don’t keep him waiting! Text him back!”

“Ok fine,” he said, picking up his phone.

She watched the Fifth Street traffic through the bay window and took another drink from the large mug she cradled in her hands. She waited until she saw Finn’s triumphant smile to press him further.

“So?” 

“So we’re getting drinks on Thursday,” he said trying to subdue the grin that was threatening to break out.

“Good,” she said, reaching into her backpack. They’d been talking for the better part of a half-hour and she needed to get something done to justify the visit to the shop. “Do you need me to give you the talk?”

“Rey, if you even think about it, I will scream,” he said with a tone of mock seriousness. They laughed. He looked down at the book she’d drawn out of her bag. “What is that, is all that your notes?

“Christ, no. It’s a book I got from the library. It’s a mess but I’m making my way through. It’s weird but… well it’s really interesting.”

“Still doing the Stein and Dickinson project?”

“God I wish. Advisor shut it down so I’m just doing Stein but I think this book might actually help me worm some Dickinson in without getting too much heat,” she said.

“Nice.”

“But enough about me, how’s Baldwin?” 

“Perfect as always,” Finn said with a smile. **  
**

She smiled back. They dove back into their own work. Finn was deep in thought working on paper for another class and she had the quiet all to herself, but even then…

_This was somebody else’s book._

The thought kept creeping back; it was the thing she hadn’t been able to shake. She was troubled by how easily the book had become his even as she held it in her hands.

She lighted upon a sheet she hadn’t seen before. But it wasn’t like the other paper—it was a different color of cream and written in a different hand; he hadn’t written it, yet the owner of the book had kept it anyway. _It must be have been written_ to _him then,_ she thought.

> If you don’t stop leaving shit everywhere I’m going to call your advisor—or your mother. I’m dead serious. Cut it out, Ben.

It was the first paper she’d seen in all of the notes that the author hadn’t written himself, and somehow, it made him feel less of an abstraction, more real. And now he had a name: Ben.

* * *

She was up too late, and she knew it. She had class early tomorrow so she really should put the book down, but it had taken her forever to finish her reading for the class on Chaucer when what she really wanted was to immerse herself back into the McCrystal book and the notes that Ben—it still felt odd to possibly know his name—had so graciously left between the pages.

> _Finally, McCrystal makes a point that serves him well, although I wish he’d push the connection between transcendentalism and modernism a bit more; it’s interesting if tangential._

Again she left her own note behind:

> Yes! Especially as that’s what I’m researching, I really do wish he’d explore the link between the two. He brings up the idea of truncated language linking them but then just leaves it at that. What about other formal elements? Other preoccupations? 

She was about to turn the page when—hold on! Here was another paper that didn’t match the others. It was a similar color and weight to the other pages of notes but it was worn and wrinkled, and on the front was written: 

> _Luke,_
> 
> _The worker in the office said you were looking for me. I got a new number, that’s why I didn’t get your call earlier. Please call when you get a chance._
> 
> _Ben_
> 
> _(xxx) xxx - xxxx_

That was—yes, that was definitely a phone number. She stared at it for a long moment. The mystery of the book kept deepening. She turned the page to the other side and read a response in a different hand:

> I can’t do it anymore, Ben. I think you need someone else to help you with this. I’m sorry. Tell your mother hello.
> 
> _~~Well, Luke, if that’s how you feel then why don’t you~~ _

Nothing else was written on the page, just a few spots of smudged ink. The whole thing was more than strange. But that number, it was the first promising lead she’d had to the author’s identity.

It was too late to do anything about it tonight. She’d try the number tomorrow, after she got done with class. She didn’t pause to ask herself why she needed to make such an event of a phone call, why it couldn’t be done in a spare moment. She only briefly thought that it wouldn’t do to be caught at a bad time if it spiraled into something… interesting. There was no way of knowing if the number was still in service, or if it still even belonged to this ‘Ben’—but she couldn’t just sit on the possibility. It was settled then. She’d call tomorrow, early evening, and maybe it wouldn’t be anything, but maybe she’d find him. Somehow, even the prospect filled her with a tension she couldn’t quite place.

 

* * *

**Monday**

* * *

 

“Did you call IT?” 

Ben groaned. Of course he hadn’t called IT. He hated IT. Going around, acting superior, with their... their… computer stuff and fixing things. Hux rolled his eyes. 

“Computers are your friend, Organa. It’s the 21st century, get on board.”

It was another typical Monday morning, and Ben had managed to break the office computer. Again. It was the third time this semester, and Hux was growing increasingly cross over Ben’s technological incompetence. 

Hux picked up the office phone—why did they even have an office phone? Who’d made that decision?—and called the internal number for IT.  

> “Hello, IT,” came the tired voice at the other end of the line. 
> 
> “Yeah, hi. My office mate’s gone and fucked up our computer again,” Hux said, speaking over Ben’s cries of protest.
> 
> “Did you try turning it off and on again?” 
> 
> “Yeah already tried that.”
> 
> “Is it plugged in?”
> 
> “God, he’d better hope it is,” he said glaring at Ben. “Yeah, it’s plugged in.”
> 
> “Ok then, what’s the office number, I’ll be down in a second.”

It didn’t take long for Finn to arrive in the dreary reserved for overflow classes and doctoral students. He’d wondered why the office number sounded familiar, and when he knocked on the door he realized why. _Oh, it was that guy. Great._ Ben Organa wasn’t the most liked TA in the department, but he was the least liked. And given how many times this year alone he’d been called in to fix something for Ben… well he wouldn’t have been too enthusiastic to begin with, and Ben’s surly demeanor certainly didn’t improve matters.

“Hello, Finn,” Hux said, leaning in the doorframe of the office. 

“Armitage,” he said with a nod, “what’s the trouble?”

“Ben murdered our desktop again with his stupidity,” Hux drawled.

“Hey!” came a cry from inside the office punctuated by a low thud, “it’s not my fault this stupid thing—”

“Hold on there, you’ll make it worse,” Finn called into the room. 

“Ben sit down,” Hux ordered, walking into the office.

Ben sat, glumly, in the lopsided swivel chair, casting a rather unhelpfully dour air onto the office.

“Ben, why don’t you take a walk…” his friend offered.

“Fine,” he grumbled, grabbing his jacket and bag. He was more likely to get work done walking about campus than cooped up in an office with a broken computer, although he hadn’t made any progress on his thesis in weeks. He supposed he should feel more worried about his lack of headway, but to tell the truth he didn’t really feel _anything_ about it. Which was… strange. He couldn’t pinpoint when he’d developed this particular case of writer’s block, but it seemed to be turning his mind entirely numb. As far as he was concerned, the sooner he could redirect his focus to a more publishable topic, the better. But as he took in the foliage of the campus he still felt rather mournful about leaving his old work behind, like he was abandoning an entire world.

* * *

>  “Hello?”

The voice on the other end was tentative and gentle. Not a telemarketer then. Probably. Ben was a little disappointed; he’d been looking forward to venting some of the day’s frustrations at a dispassionate stranger.  

> “Can I help you?” he used his teacher-voice without meaning to. 
> 
> “Yeah, um, this is gonna sound really weird but…”

The voice trailed off. Maybe a wrong number? Prank call? No, there was no way any of his students could have gotten his personal number, he’d been too careful. Besides, none of his students ever would make a prank call, that would require a level of investment none of them had so far demonstrated. He was lucky if they stayed awake during discussions on how to pass his exams. 

> “Ok, so, did you, maybe, um, misplace a book? At the library?”

He froze in place and his voice broke as he jumped hastily to answer the question with one of his own, “Did you—oh my god, did you find my book?” 

> “I think so, the um, the McCrystal one on Modernists?
> 
> “Yes,” he said in breathy apprehension.
> 
> “Yeah, I checked it out on Friday, but—I think there’s been a mistake. I mean it checked out just like a regular loan, but all the notes, I just—” 
> 
> “I can’t believe you found it, I thought—”
> 
> “Yeah, I just picked it up, I didn’t mean anything by it…" 
> 
> “I didn’t mean to leave it there.”

She didn’t respond, but paused for a second. A heavy pause.   

> “Prove it,” she said.
> 
> “Excuse me?”
> 
> “Prove that it’s yours,” she said.
> 
> “You called me!”
> 
> “Ok, but if it’s yours then… ok, then: where did I find it?”
> 
> “How should I know? It could have gone anywhere and frankly, how do I know you actually have it? Maybe you should be offering up some proof.”

The phone in his hand buzzed and he was met with a picture of the book opened somewhere in middle, notes sticking out.

> “The notes, did you…” he hated how his voice nearly cracked. 
> 
> “They’re all still here.”

He nodded, a useless gesture for a phone call. He was subdued enough to answer her demand without further protest.

> “I left it in the 300s on top of a row on Stein in Paris.”

A pause.  

> “Thank you. I just—well I really didn’t want to give it to the wrong person.”

Oh. Well now he felt foolish. He should’ve known that someone considerate enough to call in the first place would have a reason for requesting proof. 

> “I really need—can I get it back?" 
> 
> “Oh! Yeah, sure. Tomorrow?”
> 
> “I have a break at 9, could you bring it to the library then?”
> 
> “No I have class. Does 11 work?” 
> 
> “No, teaching.”

He didn’t hear her swallow as she thought to herself, _oh god, of course: he’s a teacher_. It was hardly any wonder the notes were so fucking good.

> “Hmm, three-thirty?” he tried again.
> 
> “No, I’m in seminar then, sorry.”

_God_ , he thought. _This is hopeless_.  

> “Um, well I don’t get done for the day ‘til eight,” she said. 
> 
> “No that’s no good, I’m busy all evening with workshops.” 
> 
> “Well then… I can leave it on the shelf where it was before,” she said. A pause. “Does that work?”

He thought about it. “Sure,” he said, happy to have reached a conclusion to the little drama. Her next words came out in a rush.

> “Ok fine, but I’m going to need it back soon. I’m using it for my capstone and the library doesn’t have another copy.”

And with that she hung up, not giving him time to object. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem referenced in the title of this chapter (and a couple of places within the chapter as well) is Emily Dickinson's 280:
> 
> I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,  
> And Mourners to and fro  
> Kept treading – treading – till it seemed  
> That Sense was breaking through – 
> 
> And when they all were seated,  
> A Service, like a Drum –  
> Kept beating – beating – till I thought  
> My Mind was going numb – 
> 
> And then I heard them lift a Box  
> And creak across my Soul  
> With those same Boots of Lead, again,  
> Then Space – began to toll,
> 
> As all the Heavens were a Bell,  
> And Being, but an Ear,  
> And I, and Silence, some strange Race  
> Wrecked, solitary, here – 
> 
> And then a Plank in Reason, broke,  
> And I dropped down, and down –  
> And hit a World, at every plunge,  
> And Finished knowing – then –

**Author's Note:**

> I put Dickinson in the 300s even though a lot of people put her in the 150s because she was a poet! And not just a woman! I know it's not that big a deal, I'm just dramatic.


End file.
